“Blue Daze” Finished!

Yesterday, I finished this improv log cabin quilt that I’ve been working on for the past couple of weeks. It will be the sample for an upcoming Spoonflower class.

I’m calling this one “Blue Daze” after the Happy Daze quilt I made a while ago. Turns out that there is a flower called Blue Daze, and it looks a lot like the flowers from the one print fabric that I stitched into the quilt.

I decided to go with a blue monochromatic color scheme for the quilt. I had to fight the temptation not to stitch in an orange log here and there.

I did make the whole back orange though to satisfy my orange craving. I love the look of the white dots on the orange background against the straight lines of the blue logs.

After auditioning blue and gray threads, I decided to go with the gray thread. I loved how the blue thread looked against all the logs except the white logs. For this reason, I went with the gray. It turns out that I’m not alone in choosing gray thread for quilting. I didn’t realize until all the comments on this post that gray was such a popular thread color choice among quilters!

I did most of the quilting of Blue Daze on my long arm, stitching a meandering loop all over the quilt except for the center log.

Once I finished the main quilting, I moved over to my sewing machine to finish up the center logs with wishbones and back and forth stitching. I find that quilting the detailed, tiny designs was much easier on my sewing machine than on my long arm.

As for my little experiment with prewashing the batting, I won’t know the final outcome until I wash the quilt. Since this quilt will be a class sample, I don’t plan on washing it right away. But when I do, I will let you know how it goes. I see myself starting to prewash my batting from now on. It didn’t take that long and I like knowing that I’ve avoided potential discoloration from the cotton seeds by prewashing. Here’s what Jennifer said about the reason for the brown water:

The brown water is from the seeds in the batting. Cotton seeds are oily and the seeds give off a brown coloring…if there are lots of seeds in the cotton and you dry it in a high heat, they can also explode and leave brown coloring everywhere. It’s a part of the refining process that makes the difference in battings, as well as the quality of the cotton used. The batting I use removes as many seeds as possible so that this discoloration doesn’t take place.

Thanks for explaining that Jennifer!

I’m looking forward to sharing Blue Daze with my class!

Blue Daze finishes at 50″ by 60.”

Linking up to Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday! and Crazy Mom Quilts.